1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a loading apparatus for a recording medium. More specifically, the present invention relates to a loading apparatus capable of transferring an inserted disc-shaped recording medium.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional recording medium loading apparatus installed in a disc apparatus having exchangeable property for a plurality types of disc recording media (referring to a compatible disc apparatus, hereinafter) is used as an example for description. For example, a disc apparatus used as a device for reproducing or recording information is built in or externally connected to an electronic apparatus, such as a personal computer or a word processor. The disc apparatus uses the disc-shaped recording medium as its recording medium. In addition, the disc-shaped recording medium is loaded into the disc apparatus using a recording medium loading apparatus and is then reproduced or recorded.
On the other hand, a variety of disc recording media are also provided, for example CD (Compact Disc), CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable), CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory), CD-RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable), DVD-ROM (Digital Versatile Disc-Read Only Memory), DVD-RAM (Digital Versatile Disc-Random Access Memory) are well known. In addition, there are two kinds of recording medium: one is the disc with a diameter of 12 cm, and the other is the disc with a diameter of 8 cm. Moreover, for the DVD-RAM, three kinds can be classified, including wherein the disc is enfolded in a cartridge.
As described above, although a variety of disc-shaped recording media is provided, it would be convenient if the reproducing and/or recording process for each disc-shaped recording medium could be performed by one disc apparatus. Therefore, a compatible disc apparatus having the exchangeable property for each disc-shaped recording medium is provided.
A variety of the disc-shaped recording media have to be transferred in the main body of the disc apparatus for the compatible disc apparatus. Conventionally, for the recording medium loading apparatus, a tray is used as the transferring device in the main body of the disc apparatus.
The tray can be drawn out of the main body of the disc apparatus when the disc-shaped recording medium is loaded or ejected (referring to eject time, hereinafter). In addition, loading recesses are formed on a disc loading surface of the tray for loading the 12 cm disc, 8 cm disc and the disc cartridge, thereby a variety of the disc-shaped recording media can be loaded on the tray.
For the conventional compatible disc apparatus, because the tray is installed for loading the disc-shaped recording media, it is necessary for the tray to be greatly drawn out of the main body of the disc apparatus when the disc-shaped recording media are loaded to or removed from the tray. Therefore, for the conventional compatible disc apparatus, when the disc apparatus is installed, it is necessary to estimate the drawing distance of the tray in advance for setting required space, which becomes a problem in that the installation space becomes large.
Furthermore, an external force is easily applied to the tray when the tray is greatly drawn out of the main body of the disc apparatus. Therefore, for the structure using the tray to transfer the disc-shaped recording media, there is a problem that malfunction is easily caused due to the applied external force.
Additionally, a device without installing the tray for solving the foregoing problems is provided, in which a pair of loading rollers is installed on the disc insertion opening of the main body of the disc apparatus. The disc-shaped recording medium is gripped between the loading rollers and then the loading rollers are rotated, thereby the loading process is executed. For example, this loading method is used in the loading process of an audio-CD for a car stereo system.
However, it is obvious for this loading method that the front of the disc-shaped recording medium is in contact with the rollers when the disc is loaded, causing a problem wherein the disc-shaped recording medium is damaged. In particular, for the disc-shaped recording medium having large recording capacity such as the DVD, the recorded data may be greatly lost even if the DVD has only a small scratch thereon.
Moreover, the rollers are usually made of elastic materials, such as gum, and therefore, the rollers becomes degraded after long-time use. As the rollers are degraded, relative slide between the rollers and the disc-shaped recording medium occurs, thereby the proper loading process cannot be processed.
In addition, a device for loading various types of the disc-shaped recording medium using a clamp lever rather than the tray is provided, by which the disc-shaped recording medium is brought into the main body of the disc apparatus by the clamp lever. However, for the structure using the clamp lever, the clamp lever is different from the tray in one aspect that the clamp lever cannot hold the whole disc-shaped recording medium and the clamp lever can usually hold only the front or side edge of the disc-shaped recording medium. Therefore, the hold of the disc by the clamp lever is weaker than that by the tray. The disc-shaped recording medium may be detached from the clamp lever if a large external force is applied to the disc in such a holding status.